Catch Limits

[MuskieBait]

Before anyone thinks I'm a greenie, I do keep fish for the table too. I just kept my PB 26.5" lake trout for the table...and I see nothing wrong doing that.

A fish that size...about 6lb...maybe 4lb dressed...will provide my sister and I about 2-3 good meals. Check under the Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish. You don't want to consumer too big of a lake trout or too many meals per month anyways.

Combining species in the fish count limit...I kind of don't agree with that actually. At any given time in the winter, I may catch and keep a Lake Trout, a Whitefish, a Northern Pike, a Walleye, a Burbot, a few perch and a few sunfish. I may still have a Steelhead or Brown Trout leftover (but kept in good eating condition) in the freezer from the fall. I may still have a shaker King Salmon in the freezer somewhere from trolling Lake Ontario in the summer.

What if the combined limit is set a 5, but I would like to have multiple species? I usually fish different lakes throughout the winter...or various locations on a big lake like Simcoe throughout the season. If I keep one here and one there, from different lakes and different locations, it is unlikely I'll fish out any particular lake (and that's a rational why I choose to fish different spots for different species throughout the season/year). But if I like to harvest different species, I should be able to do so. And I would like the flexibility to do so (not that I necessarily would...but hypothetically speaking, it would be nice. I have had kept 4-5 species of different fish in my freezer at some point...laker, whitefish, perch, walleye and pike are the usual suspects).

And how do you combine fish count limits if you consider panfish vs. other larger sport fish? How do you set the combined limit accounting for keeping five 10lb brown trout vs. five 12" brown trout? The former would be ridiculous amount of fish to consume...the latter would be more reasonable. But it is much harder to control for a combined count (unless it is similar to the combined 5 trout of any species limit that some zones have at the moment...and extend that to combined 5 fish "big game" possession limit for trout, pike, walleye, bass, salmon...etc, then set another combined "small game" possession limit for sunfish, crappie, perch, bullhead, mooneye...etc). But seriously, how do you monitor possession limits anyways? Have your home freezer ever been searched by MNR? Do they come door to door checking for sportfishing license and possession of sportfish? I've never heard of it unless in extreme cases of poaching or overfishing.

Full limit vs. conservation limit...I see nothing wrong in that concept. If I keep less (or any for that matter), I should only need to pay for the "basic" management and enforcement "fees/cost" to the MNR (that's what a license fee is meant to do anyways). Whereas a full limit or seasonal license should cost more factoring in the additional allowable harvest and subsequent restocking fees (if the system works perfectly...which we know it doesn't...). It's a pay per access kind of fee...and I'm perfectly happy with it.